


A Head Full of Dreams

by Starsfallinglikerain



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (go figure hehe), But with a happy ending, Danny Mahealani/Stiles Stilinski (sort of), Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Frustration, Introspection, Kisses, M/M, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Romance, Sexual Content, Spin the Bottle, a lot of kisses actually, cardiologist!Derek, cop!Stiles, dream come true, dream!alternate reality, slightly angst, subconscious wants and desires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starsfallinglikerain/pseuds/Starsfallinglikerain
Summary: And, before Stiles has the chance to fathom, they’re kissing.It’s carnal, it’s yearning, it’s softness, it’s roughness, it’s everything and it’s nothing, and it’s perfect.Stiles Stilinski feels bewildered when he realises that he dreams of kissing Derek Hale each and every night. But what unsettles him the most is that in his dreams he actually likes kissing Derek. Which is rather weird, if you'll ask him, because Derek is both a friend of his (well - sort of) and Scott's alpha, and so he needs to find a way to stop those absurd dreams. Until he realises that there's only one way to stop all this from happening again and again and to get the thoughts that those dreams carry out of his head, and that isactually kissing Derek.
Relationships: Danny Mahealani/Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Everyone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	A Head Full of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Tweet along as you read with #AHFODfic

“ _ I think that every dream that repeats itself has something mysterious, _ _   
_ _ as it makes us realise that our subconscious is obsessively digging  _ _   
_ _ in order to exhume something that is not allowed to surface _ ”

–  Stephen King

  
  
  
  
  


The first time he can’t get that damn thought out of his mind, Stiles is having breakfast. Cornflakes float on the twirling milk as he is lazily whirling around a spoon in his mug.

“Is something wrong?” asks Sheriff Stilinski with a raised eyebrow, glancing over the newspaper in his hands at his unusually quiet son . 

Stiles grumbles something unintelligible under his breath and swallows a spoonful of cornflakes. “I feel drowsy. And I have a test this morning,” is what he replies as he notices the quizzical look on his father’s face. Sheriff Stilinski nods sympathetically and goes back to reading his paper.

To be fair, at the moment, the chemistry test with Harris is the last of Stiles’ problems. This morning, he woke up when his alarm went off, as he always does, and found a handful of texts from Scott saying that he didn’t study a thing. As usual. And then, Stiles sank among the pillows and dragged his thumb with a feather-like touch across his cracked lips. 

It was  _ in that moment _ that he remembered it all, a flash that left him almost breathless, as if all air was suddenly sucked out from his lungs.

_ Derek.  _ He was  _ kissing Derek.  _ He could almost feel Derek’s lips on his, the rough scratch of Derek’s stubble against his chin, Derek’s hands tugging his hair and pulling him closer.

When he stops to recall how real and vivid that dream felt, Stiles feels his blood rushing to his cheeks and a dizziness flooding his mind. It has never happened to him before, dreaming of kissing someone, let alone Derek Hale. Come on, it’s never happened to him dreaming of kissing  _ Lydia,  _ and he’s had a crush on her for literal  _ years. _ That dream was pretty absurd, wasn’t it?

Perhaps, all those hours spent studying chemistry for the upcoming test have liquefied his brain. Or at least, that’s the most plausible explanation he can think of. 

And yet, the memory of that kiss won’t abandon him. He keeps thinking about it even as he swallows what remains of his breakfast and he rushes upstairs to brush his teeth. He’s late for school. As-fucking-usual. He freshens himself up and he puts his shoes on bouncing along in his bedroom, then he grabs his car keys from his messy desk and rushes through the town towards that torture that is normally called high school. 

It’s going to be a very long day. 

  
  


_____________

“Stiles!”

“Hmm?”

Stiles looks up from his test and glances furtively at Scott, who’s leant towards Stiles with a disconsolate look on his face. “What?” Stiles mouths, careful not to let that hellhound that is Harris catch him. Apparently, Harris is leafing through a biochemistry tome. 

“I can’t balance the equation, I don’t understand a thing!”

Stiles rolls his eyes. Scott and chemistry are two parallel lines that are never going to meet. Not that he himself likes chemistry that much, but, if he’s to be honest, which he is, he should admit that he’s proven to be quite good at it. Or, should he say, he’s proven to get an A in each and every test and make Harris pretty mad. He might not like chemistry that much, but making Harris angry fills him with pride and satisfaction, and he cannot miss out the chance of pissing Harris off. 

“Hold on,” he breathes, leaning down to get a sheet of paper from his backpack.

“Stilinski!” Harris barks, making him startle. The annoying voice of the teacher comes to his ears when he is about to unzip his backpack. 

“What?”

“I know you’re trying to cheat! Give me your test now,” barks the teacher as he stands up from behind his desk and stalks towards him. The eyes of all the other students focus upon Stiles. 

“I was actually trying to take a tissue out of my backpack,” Stiles clarifies matter-of-factly. 

“How am I supposed to believe that?” the teacher deadpans.

“Well, if you’re so desperate to mark a test flooded with my booger, go ahead,” he replies with a smirk. 

His words are followed by a general giggle. Harris stares at him impassively. His eyes narrow a little, vaguely threateningly, but Stiles has learnt to hold his stare defiantly long time ago. 

“I’ll keep a watchful eye on you,” the teacher warns before going back to his desk.

Stiles grabs a tissue from his backpack and tears it discreetly, careful not to be seen by prying eyes; then, he blows his nose once or twice while he continues to do the exercises on his test, glancing at Harris once or twice to make sure that the teacher hasn’t noticed what he’s doing. When it’s likely that he can’t blow his nose on that tissue again, he stands up and heads towards the trash can. He pretends to stumble, as socially awkward as he is  –  and it’s a feature that he’s learnt to turn in his own favour, every now and then  – , and he hits Scott’s desk, letting the tissue with the equation written on it drop from his hands.

Stiles feels Harris dragging his eyes on his back and glaring daggers at him, but he deliberately ignores it all as he continues walking towards the trash can rubbing his side where he’s deliberately hit the corner of Scott’s desk.

When he sits back on his chair, he hastens to finish his test and then he hands it in with a sardonic grin on his face.

_____________

  
  


“Dude, you saved my life back there,” says Scott as he approaches him. He thankfully pats Stiles on the shoulder.

“Anytime,” Stiles says thoughtfully. He really can’t get that damn dream out of his head. And it’s not only annoying, not being able to concentrate on literally anything else for more than, like, five seconds. It’s also rather weird and this whole situation unsettles him. It’s not like he has a crush on Derek…  _ so why can’t he  _ –  __

“Is everything okay?” Scott asks worriedly. Stiles blinks back to reality.

Stiles knows that Scott can feel that there’s something up with him. His skin probably smells fuzzily or slightly bitterly or whatever, and Scott probably noticed when he arrived at school this morning, but they haven’t really had the chance to talk about it. 

But  –  as much as Scott is his best friend, who patiently listens to all of his rambling and knows all the embarrassing details of his life  –  and there are many, he swears  –  , there’s no way he can tell Scott that he’s dreamed about kissing Derek. Not because Derek is a guy. It’s because Derek is Scott’s grumpy, sour alpha. No way it’s going to happen. No-fucking-way. 

And besides, it’s nothing worth discussing. It was just a dream, wasn’t it?

“What? No, I  –  uhm  –  just peachy,” he says with a careless shrug.

“You sure? I mean, you can tell me. You know that,” Scott prompts.

“Trust me, Scott, it’s not something you’d want to know. It’s  –  it’s pretty embarrassing,” he laughs under his breath. He hopes Scott understands that it’s really nothing and won’t investigate further. 

Instead, Scott scoffs, “More embarrassing than you lap dancing?” 

“Jeez, when will you stop bringing that up?” he says with an eye-roll. Apparently, Scott never misses a chance to bring up this marvellous story of which Stiles had been the protagonist a few years ago. But maybe, Stiles thinks, if he uses it to divert Scott’s attention…

“Do I need to remind you that I’ve never got drunk again since then? And by the way, I got better at lap dancing.”

“Please, spare me the details.”

“Well, it was  _ you _ who brought that up, you know,” Stile retorts. 

“So what? What is it that is bothering you?” Scott insists, crumbling Stiles’ hopes, “I promise I won’t judge you and I’ll be as silent as a grave.”

“I  –  uhm  –  ” Stiles stutters. There’s no way of saying this without making it extremely embarrassing. The way in which Derek ran his fingers through his hair and clinged to his hips in his dream is enough to make his stomach churn even now. 

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” he exclaims. He glances at Scott, who is expectantly staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, okay,  _ fine.  _ I, uhm  –  I dreamed of Derek. Kissing me,” he finally comes clean, incapable of hiding something away from his best friend. He stares down at the tip of his worn out shoes as he feels heat rising across his cheeks.  _ I must be as red as a tomato,  _ he thinks.

“You did WHAT?” Scott shouts.

“Lower your voice!” Stiles tells him off with a pat on the back of his neck. Last thing he needs is that the whole Beacon Hills High School comes to know that he subconsciously fantasises about Derek Hale. 

_ I don’t subconsciously fantasise about  _ –  __

“You dreamed about kissing  _ that  _ Derek?!”

“No, my cousin,” he deadpans. “Come on, Scott, how many Dereks do you think I know?” he asks with a roll of his eyes. He should have known better than telling Scott. It was obvious that this was going to become cringeworthy. 

“I need a moment,” Scott says, “It’s  –  it’s  – it’s disturbing!”

“I told you that you wouldn’t want to know,” Stile says with yet another roll of his eyes and an exasperated sigh. 

It’s not that Scott has ever judged him or treated him differently since when Stiles came out to him as bisexual, at all. He’s never been anything but supportive, and Stiles is glad of having a friend like him. He really is. But  _ this  _ –  well, this is a complete different story.

“No, it’s alright. I just  –  I mean  –  the idea is a bit…”. Scott struggles to find the right word. He presses his lips into a thin line.

“It unsettles you. I know, I feel the same,” Stiles says. He continues to waver his hands nervously. “I mean, of all people, why Derek?” he wonders.

“What about him?” Allison chimes in, suddenly standing at Scott’s side. She kisses him on the cheek. Her dark, wavy hair swaying after her motions. 

“Nothing!” Stiles replies quickly, probably too hastily not to arouse suspicion. However, this does nothing to keep his secret, because Scott says in the same moment:

“Stiles dreamed of kissing him.” 

He earns a death glare from Stiles.

“Scott!” barks Stiles, his voice abruptly annoyed, even though he knows that he’s not going to bear a grudge at his best friend for long. “What was it that you said? ‘I promise I’ll be as silent as a grave’?”

“‘M sorry,” Scott whispers apologetically, his head hanging between his shoulders.

Stiles snorts and sinks his hands in the pockets of his tight jeans. 

“So… Derek, huh?” Allison remarks, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Stiles. He’s older than you, that’s true, but… I mean, he’s handsome.” She takes Scott’s hand when she notices that he’s glaring at her for that appreciative remark on his alpha. 

“I  _ don’t like  _ him,” Stiles exclaims with a revulsive look on his face. “I mean, he might be Adonis, but he’s always wearing long face, he threatens my life at every given occasion and and he is extremely unnerving,” he argues. 

He’s lost track of all the times the two of them have bickered and the alpha has threatened him to rip his throat out with his teeth, which is usually when Stiles threatens him back to tie him to a lamppost like a rabid dog. None of them has actually tried to do as they say but… it’s kind of become a running joke, by now.

Before either Allison or Scott can say anything, the bell rings and echoes through the crowded hallways. 

“We need to go to class,” Stiles cuts short, glad of putting an end to that conversation. “Besides, it was just a dream.”

_____ ________ 

  
  
  


_ By now, Stiles knows the hospital hallways by heart. He’s grown familiar with that maze of white walls, flickering argon lights and the pungent smell of antiseptic. Nurses now greet him with a smile and gladly chat with him. They even allow him to stay past visiting hours. _

_ A weary sigh escapes his lips. _

_ He’s been juggling around between his job at the precinct and his boyfriend being at the hospital for days now. He feels like he’s standing on the edge of a breakdown and he’s one slip away from falling down, down, down. God, he is exhausted.  _

_ He steps into the elevator and stabs the button that will take him to the fourth floor, to the cardiology ward. At the end of the day, being able to see Danny is the only thing that matters to him. And the only thing that keeps him going. _

_ Danny checked into the hospital 20 days ago. Luckily, he’s recovered from his acute pericarditis, but the doctors say they’ll do some other medical checks before he’s allowed to go home. _

_ The steel doors of the elevator are about to close when a big, callous hand holds them. The man who just stopped the doors from closing steps into the elevator. _

_ Stiles looks up from where his eyes were staring down at the floor. His heart stutters and leaps to his throat, as if hitched with a hook that someone was tugging abruptly. His mouth goes dry, a breath snagged in his windpipe. _

Derek Hale. 

_ Derek Hale in a white coat. _

_ What the Hell is he doing here? _

_ “...Derek?” _

_ “Stiles?!” _

_ “Long time no see. What are you doing here?” Stiles politely asks.  _

_ It’s been  _ years _ since they last saw each other. And yet, Stiles’ heart, beating rampantly, apparently recalls having had a giant crush on the tall, dark and handsome young man that is now standing right in front of Stiles. That was before Stiles started dating Danny, of course. So why is his heart traitorously trying to break through his ribcage  _ –  __

_ “I work here,” Derek explains with a wave of his hand. “I got a medical degree and then majored in cardiology. It felt a bit surreal, when I was allocated this very hospital,” he remarks.  _

_ Stiles’ gaze flicks to the little plate clipped on Derek’s white coat. ‘Dr. Hale’, it says.  _

_ “What ‘bout you?” Derek asks then, “What are  _ you _ doing here? Nothing serious, I hope.” _

_ “That’s a bit ironic, I might say, but I’m heading to the cardiology ward to see my boyfriend,” Stiles says, looking at Derek right in the eye to see how he’d react to his answer, but Derek’s face stays unreadable. If a minimal shift crosses his face, it’s too quick for Stiles to see.  _

_ “The cardiology ward, you say?” he asks, “Maybe he’s one of my patients.” _

_ “Danny Mahealany.” _

_ “Ohh, Danny, yes. The pericarditis case,” Derek remarks with a nod of his head, “Yeah, he’s one of my patients.” A pause. Derek’s gaze gently roams across Stiles’ face. “He’s supposed to be dismissed in a few days, we are just running some additional medical checks. You have nothing to worry about,” he says with a reassuring smile that curves his lips upwards. _

_ God, that damn smile. _

_ “How long have you been dating?” Derek asks then. _

_ Stiles’ heart falters. He scolds himself: Derek isn’t really interested in that information. He’s simply being polite, for once. He’s simply trying to make conversation with someone he hasn’t seen in years. Or maybe he’s trying not to stand in an elevator filled with awkward silence with an old acquaintance of his.  _

_ “Almost one year,” Stiles replies, trying to force a smile on his face, but he suddenly feels so stiff, as if his body won’t react. It’s a strange feeling, like he’s stared at Medusa straight in the eye and he is now petrified, but completely aware of his thoughts, and his feelings, and the way his stomach churns and the perfidious butterflies that flicker their ethereal, incorporeal, flimsy wings against his ribs.  _

_ Suddenly, a crawling, creeping feeling settles upon his chest, as if it’s being flooded with rainwater and all the aforementioned butterflies get drowned.  _

_ Guilty.  _

_ He feels  _ guilty.

_ How is he supposed to look at Danny when it’s ironclad that he still feels these…  _ these things,  _ for Derek? _

  
  


_ “I’m happy for you guys” Derek says. A pause. “So, here we are. It was great to see you again.” He reaches out and ruffles Stiles’ hair just a moment before the doors open and he steps out of the elevator.  _

_ What was that? _

Alright, Stiles, breathe. Just breathe. Calm down.

_ If anyone had asked him ten minutes ago, Stiles would have said that he was totally over Derek Hale. He was convinced to the bone that dating Danny completely got Derek-sourwolf-Hale out of his head  _ –  _ and out of his heart  _ –  _ , but apparently there are at least two things Stiles was wrong about. _

_ First, his huge crush on Derek Hale hasn’t diminished, not even a little bit, not ever.  _

_ And second, apparently Derek-sourwolf-Hale is not as sour as he used to be when Stiles was still in high school. His grumpiness has completely disappeared. In fact, he seems a completely different person. _

_ Completely different, and yet still the same. He’s as handsome as Stiles remembers.  _

_ That dark stubble, the sharp line of his jaw, and those eyes, as green as a spring lawn and as deep as the ocean, still set Stiles’ soul on fire and make it burn like an arson.  _

_ How is Stiles supposed to go and see Danny? How? _

_ He needs to reinhabit his own body, to smother down the heat he feels rising in his chest like an eruption of lava is crawling up his windpipe, to take on a calm demeanour.  _

_ He hopes the aftershocks of this encounter are not visible across his face. Nonetheless, he feels transparent as a glass plate. As if anyone passing by is able to tell the confusion and dizziness he finds himself possessed by.  _

But glass is not only transparent. It’s also fragile,  _ he finds himself thinking. Does this mean that he’s going to fracture and crumble down in a rain of sharp shards? _

_ Stiles finds that he has wandered through the hallway on autopilot and is now standing right in front of Danny’s room. Slowly, he opens the door and peeps through it. Danny is waiting for him, as he always is, sitting on the bed.  _

_ “Hey, my love.” He greets Stiles with a cheerful grin, his face lighting up. _

_ Stiles swallows thickly, before approaching Danny and leaning in to chastely kiss his lips. “How’re you feeling today?” he asks, sitting next to Danny on the bed. The knobbly mattress bends over his body and Stiles straightens up uncomfortably. He wants to squirm.  _

_ “‘M fine,” he replies, “I think I’m going to be dismissed in a few days, I’m waiting for the results of the last few medical checks.” Danny reaches out and takes Stiles’ hand in both his, fiddling with Stiles’ tapered fingers. He’s always liked to do that. _

_ “I know,” Stiles says. A pause. He speaks again when he notices a puzzled look on Danny’s face. “I met Derek on my way here. Didn’t know he’s your cardiologist.” _

_ “Yeah. That’s odd,” Danny remarks, squinting one eye. _

_ “What?” _

_ “That my cardiologist is an old flame of yours.” _

_ Danny’s giggle reaches Stiles’ ears, but his mind has come to a standstill. Like a telltale, he freezes when he hears those two damning words.  _ Old flame. 

_ Danny doesn’t know and can’t know. He can’t know that Stiles’ heart plummeted towards his gut when Derek dishevelled his hair, he can’t know that Stiles felt inebriated with the smell of Derek’s skin after all this time and, most of all, he can’t know how desperate Stiles felt to rush at his lips. _

_ “Stiles,” Danny says, his face suddenly sobered. His hands stop playing with Stiles’ fingers and they still. Slowly, he untangles them and retreats them back on his lap. _

_ “Hmm?” _

_ “Derek is an old flame to you… isn’t he?” _

_ Stiles looks up from where his gaze rested on Danny’s hands and his eyes meet Danny’s stare. His firm, adamant, and yet watery stare.  _

_ He knows. He clearly does. _

_ Danny has always been very sensitive, and lying to him wouldn’t do anything. Or, possibly, it would make all this even worse than it already is. And Stiles doesn’t want that. He needs to have the courage to be honest. He owes it to Danny. _

_ Stiles looks away. He cannot bring himself to say anything. Silence descends between them. A heavy, laden-with-unsaid-confessions silence. A silence that is an admission of guilt. _

_ Danny’s murmur tears it. “I thought you were over him…” _

_ “I did too, Danny,” Stiles admits in a breath filled with shame and self-reproach, “I thought he wasn’t a part of my life any longer, but… But maybe tonight I realised I was wrong.” _

_ “I knew.” _

_ “You knew what?” _

_ “Deep down, I knew that you’d never love me as much as you love him. And for all this time, I’ve been only hoping that, for once, I was wrong.” _

_ His voice, a paradox. It sounds both adamant and fragile. A tear escapes his eye and starts rolling down his cheek, but Danny doesn’t let it carry through its race across his skin, and he wipes it away with a harsh scrub of his hand. _

_ “Danny, I  _ –  _ I’m  _ –  _ I’m so sorry.” His words are shaky. He didn’t mean to hurt him. He hopes Danny knows as much. _

_ “Leave me alone,” Danny says. His words are muffled, as if a lump is clogging his throat. “Please,” is the last, whispered word Stiles hears from him. _

_ Stiles swallows thickly and nods, without saying a word. He stands up and smooths out the white sheets where he’s been sitting, as if it would do something to make up for the way in which he’s just brutally and unintentionally broken Danny’s heart. It does nothing, however. Stiles feels pathetic. _

_ Before leaving, he reaches out and rests his hand on Danny’s knee, as he’s done a hundred times before. For the first time ever, though, Danny flinches and pulls away abruptly from the touch, as if he’s been burned. Or as if he is utterly disgusted and can’t stomach the thought of being touched by Stiles ever again. _

_ Stiles pinches his eyes shut for a moment and then leaves, every step heavy and strenuous, as if he’s walking on fresh tarmac, sticky and clinging to the soles of his shoes.  _

_ He takes the stairs. He doesn’t think he can stand in the elevator alone with his thoughts at the moment. All he can think about is how he’s successfully screwed up everything yet another time. God above, Danny is smart, and sweet, and good, and kind, and doesn’t deserve what Stiles has just done to him. What Stiles  _ and his absurd, huge crush on Derek Hale  _ have just done to him. _

_ Stiles has fucked up. He has fucked up pretty bad. He knows he has.  _

Congrats, Stilinski.

_ “Stiles?” _

_ At the sound of his name, Stiles is abruptly brought back to reality. He would recognise the sound of his name on those lips everywhere, in every catastrophic scenario you could ever think of.  _

_ Stiles hates himself for that. And most of all, he hates himself for how his body reacts at that voice, as a devout man who piously hears the voice of God. Stiles stops his desperate walking, even though he is consciously willing to put how much space as is physically possible between him and the man beside him.  _ But the heart wants what it wants, right?

_ Slowly, he turns to face Derek. And there he is, Derek, as beautiful and melancholic as an Hellenic sculpture, standing in the middle of the parking lot, with that leather jacket that Stiles has always loved. The look on his face, serious and grave and worried. His green eyes, raging.  _

God, those eyes.

_ A thunder rolls overhead. _

_ “Screw you,” Stiles says between gritted teeth. _

_ He doesn’t know whether his insult is addressed to Derek, or himself, or, Hell, both of them. _

_ Derek takes a step towards him, in spite of having been just insulted. His stare doesn’t falter. _

_ Stiles falls back. One step, then another. His back meets with the door of a parked car, and that’s the moment he knows his escape has come to a halt. He’s cornered.  _

_ Derek keeps cautiously walking towards him, as if he doesn’t want to scare him, and then stops right in front of him, the space between them minimised. _

_ Stiles has to lean his head back to meet Derek’s gaze. Their eyes lock. _

_ Derek reaches out and lets his hand run through Stiles’ hair. The short hair on the back of Stiles’ neck raise up, his skin prickling with goosebump. Derek’s hand comes to a halt when it reaches Stiles’ nape. _

_ Stiles’ heart is pounding. He’s almost sure that Derek can feel his rushed pulse from where his hand rests on his neck.  _

_ Stiles is dumbfounded. He feels his own pulse hammering in his ear like the low bass of a synth. He can’t think straight. The only thing he can focus on is the heat of Derek’s body, the warmth that his hand on the back of his neck rouses, and Derek’s breath on his dry lips. _

_ He wets his lips, and then he swallows thickly.  _

_ “Screw you,” he repeats in a breath, and Derek muzzles him, rushing towards his mouth, kissing him ardently. _

_ If anyone asks Stiles how he would describe himself, normally he would answer ‘fidgeting’. Now, however, he feels calm and extremely yielding. He slightly parts his lips, following Derek’s lead, letting himself be pinned up against the car behind him as Derek pushes forward.  _

_ Stiles’ shaky hands grab the belt loops of Derek’s slacks and tug to pull him closer. A guttural sound escapes Derek’s lips in appreciation, before he entangles Stiles’ hair and gently tugs it. Then, painfully slowly, he draws his ravenous lips down Stiles’ exposed throat, leaving behind a trail of wet kisses and the rough scratch of his stubble. _

_ Stiles feels he’s standing on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall down, down, down, as he is collapsed against the car behind him, panting, while Derek’s lips gently bite the sensitive and diaphanous skin on the side of his neck.  _

  
  
  


His alarm goes off and Stiles wakes up abruptly. He sits up, groaning and mumbling incomprehensibly, and slams his alarm. He knocks it off the bedside table.

He runs a hand through his dishevelled hair, and then he sinks back among the pillows, already weary. The day isn’t even started yet and he wishes it was already over. 

A beep from his mobile phone catches his attention.

  
  


_ So, has Derek been the object (or the victim, as it were) of your wet dreams last night as well? ;-) _

  
  


Lydia Martin.   
  


There’s no way that anyone among his friends knows everything about everyone. Of course they know everything about everyone. And of course they know everything about these wild, completely absurd and incomprehensible dreams he’s been having lately.

It’s been already two weeks since Allison let it slip with Lydia that Stiles is having dreams about Derek. So now, all the pack know, besides Derek. Or at least, that’s what Stiles hopes.

  
  


_ None of your business, Lyds. _

  
  


_ I’ll take that as a yes. _

  
  


It’s unnerving, he must admit. But most of all, he cannot come to terms that he’s been having those dreams for the past  _ month.  _ Almost every night, Stiles dreams about the alpha and his passionate kisses. This usually leaves him with both a sexual frustration that needs to be somehow resolved and an annoying morning wood that cannot be attributed to physiological reasons.

What’s most absurd in this whole situation, whis is pretty absurd in and on itself, is that in the past month he’s had to meet Derek more frequently than usual. He knows that he’s blushed and stuttered and acted weirdly around him, and all of that because of those damn dreams. And he knows that the other members of the pack have also been looking at him funnily.

However, Derek doesn’t seem to have noticed a thing. Or maybe  –  _ most likely  _ –  he doesn’t give a damn. 

And yet, Stiles can’t help but wonder how it would feel to kiss those lips for real, to feel that scrubble scratch against his skin, or to feel Derek’s big and expert hands wander across his body, with all its sharp edges and bones and its beauty marks. 

He wonders if it would be as good as in his dreams.

Even though it’s weird, thinking that he could actually find himself in such a situation with Derek, he cannot help but admit that… yeah, it’s good. It’s insanely good, ‘cause he loves the idea of having someone he can kiss whenever he wants to, ‘cause he loves the feelings he feels in those dreams, but he knows that it’s nothing but a pipedream.

Stiles knows that things cannot be that way, because real life is different and when you dream, he knows, everything feels better.

_____________ 

  
  


He never thought that he’d ever get to do that, but he feels like he is going insane. He wants to stop dreaming of Derek  _ like that _ . It’s inconvenient.

And it isn’t just about the dreams. Those, he can handle  –  sort of. 

It’s about the feelings they carry since the day it all started. He feels this wholeness in own chest, as if his lungs expand just a bit too much when he breathes in and they flatten themselves against his ribcage. Or as if there’s this strange feeling, this strange feeling he doesn’t have a name for yet, which feels just a little too tight to be restrained in his chest. Sometimes, Stiles would like to dig his own hands in his chest and rip it open, so that he might be freed from this pressure he feels in his insides, pushing towards the outside. 

Maybe, if he did that, he would also be freed from the way he keeps remembering those dreams all day long. Maybe, they would just stop and he could go back to normal. 

Upon the advice of Lydia, he has tried several things to get all of that  –  to get  _ Derek  _ –  out of his mind: he’s abstaining from watching porn videos or anything that could remotely turn him on; he blows off steam his own hormones before going to sleep if he feels even vaguely aroused; Hell, he’s even tried to go for a run with Scott at night so that he can come home weary to the bone and crumble face-first on his bed and sleep like the dead all night long. 

No such luck.

Nothing has worked. 

Yes, he’s unlucky like that.  _ Fuck. _

Avoiding Derek and playing hooky the pack meetings by making up absurd excuses, that’s another thing he’s tried. He thought that maybe,  _ maybe,  _ if he avoids Derek, his twisted subconscious would be devoid of sparks for other dreams on the alpha. But Derek hasn’t taken well Stiles playing hooky. In fact, he’s actually climbed up through his window and told him, quite literally,  _ to bring his bony ass over to his loft before he rips his throat off with his teeth. _

“I can’t go on like this, I just can’t,” he grumbles at the noodles right in front of him, his voice both hopeless and pissed off. 

“No luck, Stiles?” Allison asks kindly over the table, where she is sitting next to Scott.

“Nope,” he replies, popping the  _ p. _

“You’re a fucking liability, Stilinski,” Erika remarks with an eyeroll. 

“Not as much as you, sweetheart,” Stiles retorts, giving her a death glare before staring down at his noodles again. He hopelessly moves the food around his plate with his fork. 

“You’re always so overdramatic! Just go ahead and kiss him, for God’s sake,” Erika says with an annoyed tone of voice.

“Yeah, sure, so that he can  _ definitely _ rip my throat out with his fucking teeth,” Stiles deadpans. A pause, deliberate. Then, he adds, “Scott, why don’t you start arranging my funeral already? Oh, and before I die I want to make sure that you know I love you all. Well, beside you, Erika, of course.”

“Maybe she has a point,” Lydia chimes in as she sits down next to him. “I’ve done some research,” she announces, impatiently drumming her fingertips on the table.

“As if I hadn’t already sifted through all those shitty websites. Guess what? I haven’t figured out  _ anything _ .”

“Well, according to this theory I’ve found, our dreams are our most recondite and subconscious wants trying to emerge,” Lydia explains.

“You don’t say? Freud said that like a hundred years ago,” Stiles says matter-of-factly. “Also, it’s bullshit. I  _ don’t want _ to kiss Derek,” announces Stiles as he shoves his plate aside. 

_ That’s not what you felt this morning,  _ maliciously whispers a voice in his head. 

A shiver scatters up his spine.

_ The others don’t need to know _ , Stiles thinks.  _ Besides, I don’t really want to kiss Derek. It’s just these dreams, this isn’t me, I just want all of this to stop. _

“God, do you even wanna help me?” he asks, exasperated.

“If you just let me speak.” Lydia pouts her red lips. “As I said, our dreams are vivid manifestations of our subconscious wants.” She raises her hand to stop Stiles from protesting again. “Maybe, if you want this to stop haunting you, you should just… make it happen,” she suggests, finally softening the fierce look on her face as she glances at him. 

Stiles gives her a flat stare and says nothing.

Actually kissing Derek is not an option. He wants it all to stop, he’s tired to the bone and can’t take it anymore, he would do anything to put an end to this whole thing, but  –  that’s where he draws the line. 

“She may be right,” Allison remarks, snapping Stiles out from his thoughts and taking him back to reality. 

Erika, Boyd and Isaac all nod at her words.

“So you think that I’m going to just kiss Derek, like it’s nothing?” he mumbles, throwing his hands in the hair. “And by the way, for me it’s a big no-no.”

“But… maybe if you do that, it stops,” Scott suggests tentatively. 

Stiles narrows his eyes and glares daggers at him. “You should back me up, you traitor!” he bitterly exclaims, and then adds, “And, again, there’s no way I’m kissing Derek like it’s nothing. I can’t, like, shove myself at his lips.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We got this,” Lydia says conspiratorially, drumming again her fingertips on the table, her long, red-polished nails fingernails clacking on the table.

Stiles hums on a low note unenthusiastically. He has a whole plethora of reasons not to be convinced about doing that. But he does want to put an end to those dreams. He does want them to stop. And if this means that he need to kiss Derek for real to accomplish this… well, so be it?

Or at least, that’s what he keeps telling himself in order to try and convince himself that this is not going to be a terrible idea. 

_____________ 

  
  


“So you invited me to babysit you?” That’s what Derek said when he entered the room.

They are at Lydia’s lake house. She has organised a party for the pack, and she has invited Derek as well. Surprisingly, he accepted the invitation. Stiles thought that it was simply not possible that he’d say yes, and yet there he is, standing across the room with a beer clutched in his hand.

“Come on, sourwolf, lay off and live a little,” Stiles said to him, shoving said-beer in his hands before running away to tell Lydia that he is shitting himself. How is he even supposed to  _ kiss _ Derek? That is never going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

He doesn’t agree with the plan. He has tried to tell himself that he does, but he really doesn’t. He never has. And now that it’s just a matter of hours  –  or even  _ minutes  _ –  he’s desperate to retreat. Not that Lydia would let him, of course. She wants to see this through. But, well  –  it’s not her who is literally going to risk her throat being ripped out for kissing Derek I’m-a-sourwolf-who-hates-everyone Hale.

How could Derek even think about accepting the invitation, Stiles cannot fathom. Why would he want to spend his night to “babysit them”, as he put it. Why is he here. Why, why, why  – 

Stiles spends the whole night trying to avoid Derek and vanishing into thin air when Derek is around or, worse, is walking towards him. Stiles doesn’t think he can carry on a conversation with him. In fact, the only thing Stiles can think about tonight is how to make a run for it. Unfortunately enough, he doesn’t come up with any excuse that would be believable enough.

He spends the night overthinking, blaming himself for letting this happen and for not being capable of wrenching himself away from this situation, until Lydia decides that it’s time to set her plan in motion and asks, “Hey, why don’t we play Spin The Bottle?” 

A whole hum of enthusiastic nods and remarks follows her words and deadens both Stiles and Dereks’ attempts to protest. Stiles wishes the Earth would open up like a grave and swallow him whole. And Derek probably regrets saying yes to Lydia’s invitation and thinks that this is much worse than babysitting - it’s sticking with a bunch of kids that will be kids. 

“Well, that is the majority verdict,” she says complaisancely, enthusiastically clapping her hands together. She has them all sit down in a wide circle in the living room and forces both Stiles and Derek to do as she says. Their protests won’t be listened to, she announces. They both sit down defiantly across one another.

“Come on, Stiles, you go first,” Lidya orders with a sly wink at him as she hands him an empty bottle of beer. Stiles cannot help but wonder if it was Derek’s.

He swallows thickly and grabs it reluctantly, his hands trembling and sweaty. Stiles stretches to place the bottle at the centre of the circle. He sucks in a sharp breath, then exhales, and then he makes the bottle spin with a flick of his wrist. The bottle spins around and around and around and then starts to gradually slow down its motion. 

Stiles’ stomach lurches and then tighten itself in tighter and tighter knots as each moment passes. He holds his breath as he expectantly waits for the verdict. 

His shoulders sag when the neck of the bottle points towards Lydia. He pushes out all the air in his lungs.

Well,  _ that’s ironic.  _

Some time ago, he probably would have killed for such a thing to happen. He would have thanked each and every divinity he could think of, for such an opportunity, but now… now, he finds that it’s not what he was hoping for. In fact, in this moment, all he can feel is frustration and a vague bitter aftertaste in the back of his throat. What is it? Is it disappointment? Is it disappointment, this strange feeling that is spreading over his chest like thick, eerie fog?

He approaches her and leans in hesitantly. Their lips meet. Lydia’s lips part when they touch Stiles’, her tongue gently caressing his mouth. 

The kiss is low and fast at the same time.

Stiles keeps his eyes pinched shut for the whole kiss, his lips barely moving against hers, his hands hanging inert at his sides. Lydia is grabbing him by his shoulders, he can feel the sting of her pointy fingernails digging into the back of his shoulders, right above his shoulder blades.

When she pulls away, Stiles’ gaze flicks to Derek, who has been watching them with the same unreadable look on his face as ever. His green eyes meet Stiles’, and Stiles feels his stomach churn once again. It’s impossible for him to guess what Derek’s thinking about, if there even is something passing through his mind.

Stiles stumbles back to his spot and sits down muttering under his breath, staring down at the floorboards.

“Stiles, you okay?” asks Scott with a worried look in his eyes. 

Hesitantly, Stiles nods.

Now it’s up to Lydia to spin the bottle. She does. The bottle now points towards Derek. A vague feel of nausea twirls in his stomach.

Once again,  _ that’s ironic _ . Stiles wants to start shouting, or maybe laugh hysterically, he can’t decide which. Perhaps he’d do both if he hadn’t the eyes of half pack looking at him expectantly. The eyes of half pack, including Derek’s. Why is Derek looking at him  – 

Stiles looks away quickly, dragging his stare back to the floorboards, while Lydia leans in and steals a kiss from Derek.

“Looks like you’re about to barf,” Erika ironically whispers to him. 

Stiles considers telling her to go to hell, but decides against it. It would do nothing to make him feel better. “‘M fine,” he says between gritted teeth.

“That’s not what your skin is telling me, you know? It smells like you’re definitely jealous, Stilinski,” she scoffs. Stiles decides to ignore her. 

He also decides to ignore the fact that  _ yes  _ –  that tightness in his stomach does feel like jealousy.  _ He _ being jealous. Of Derek. God, it’s absurd. He’s never been a jealous person, like  _ at all _ . And yet, seeing Derek’s lips meeting Lydia’s, even though it’s for a moment and a moment only, when he wanted to have those lips only for himself, he can’t help but curl his fingers in his palms and clench his fists to stop himself from splitting the two of them. He can feel the sharp prick of his bitten fingernails sink into the tender skin of his palms. It could use this feeling as a distraction. He needs to focus on something else, and the sting in his palms seems to be perfect for that.

The night passes among kisses, laughters, sometimes playful protests. He has to kiss Lydia a couple of other times, Erika and, Hell, even Scott!

Each passing second, Stiles feels himself free-falling. He didn’t realise he was standing on the verge of a precipice, and now that he’s taken that step forward, the ground has been unconsciously sweeped off his feet, and he’s falling down, down, down. There are no protrusions he can seize, he feels like his hands are trying to grab a handhold on a plate of glass slick with rain. 

He feels nervous and frustrated and on the brink of a mental breakdown when Erika spins the bottle, which stops its nth spin and points towards Derek. That’s no longer ironic.

_ That’s cruel.  _

That’s definitely a cruel joke that he doesn’t think he deserves. He cannot fathom how it hasn’t occurred to him yet to kiss Derek when it seems that the rest of them is so lucky at that. 

Stiles’ breath catches in his throat with sudden realisation. His heart starts to pitter-patter.

Hell, he wants to kiss  _ him _ . He would even go as far as to say that he feels  _ desperate _ to kiss him. He feels desperate to assault Derek’s lips so that he can get ‘em out of his head once and forever. He’s sure that when he kisses Derek, the spell of that dream will break and he’ll finally be able to carry on with his life without further vaguely erotic dreams about Derek Hale. Fuck.

_ If he doesn’t kiss me in ten minutes, I swear to God I’m leaving,  _ he thinks. 

But  –  is it really why he wants to kiss him so badly? Just to get him out of his head? Or  – 

– or is there something more?

“Stiles?”

He flicks back to reality when he hears Scott’s voice saying his name. So, he looks up just to find the neck of the bottle irremediably and irrevocably pointing towards him, and a pair of green eyes staring at him over the circle. He swallows thickly.

“It’s  –  uh, it’s pointing towards… you,” Scott stutters, and then nods at Derek.

Oh _. _

_ Oh.  _

Stiles freezes. After waiting for this, and, quite literally, dreaming about kissing Derek Hale, now, now that it is about to happen, Stiles finds himself still, frozen, paralysed. 

Ironically enough, he feels a strange heat rising across the back of his neck, a shiver scampering down his spine, the palms of his hands turning sweaty. His mouth goes dry. He feels the urge to wet his lips but cannot bring himself to.

It could be a panic attack, he thinks as his pulse hammers loudly in his ears, but when Derek kneels down in front of him and his left hand rests on Stiles’ shoulder, while his other hand gently caresses Stiles’ cheek before resting on the side of his neck, Stiles finds that he feels perfectly calm.

He watches Derek lean into the space between them and close his eyes before their lips collide. Stiles’ mouth is dry and yearning. On the other hand, Derek’s lips are surprisingly soft and gentle. 

And, before Stiles has the chance to fathom, they’re kissing. 

Derek’s hand is firm and steady on the back of Stiles’ neck, while his other hand is holding him firmly but delicately by the shoulder, as if he wants to pull Stiles closer but doesn’t want to be forward. 

For a moment, the kiss is chaste, a touch of lips that is barely a touch. 

And then, Stiles slightly parts his lips and his tongue boldly searches for Derek’s, which meets halfways, gentle and wet and soft as a velvet caress.

They should probably pull away, Stiles thinks, but he finds that he doesn’t want to, enraptured as he is in all those feelings he feels swimming and whirling within his chest, incredibly sensitive in all the parts of him where Derek touches him and where he doesn’t  –  his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders, his lips, his tongue. 

His skin. 

_ His heart. _

If in his dreams Stiles has come to terms with the fact that their kisses is something that he likes, well  –  _ that _ he cannot define: it’s carnal, it’s yearning, it’s softness, it’s roughness, it’s everything and it’s nothing, and it’s perfect. 

It’s only when an appreciative moaning embarrassingly escapes his lips and Derek replies with a pleased guttural sound, pulling himself closer and scratching his stubble against Stiles’s skin, that Stiles suddenly remembers that there are at least six people watching them with a look of surprise and confusion on their faces. 

Abruptly, Stiles pulls away and shoves Derek away.

Derek almost loses his balance and needs to reach out to put a hand on the floorboards to steady himself, suddenly unbalanced as he is, and to avoid tumbling down on the ground. 

Derek looks up and his gaze flickly searches for Stiles’ eyes, but Stiles won’t look at him. He feels too ashamed now to even  _ think,  _ let alone face what they’ve just done.

Before he can even realise what he’s doing, Stiles stands up, says  _ sorry _ under his breath and staggers out of Lydia’s house followed by a bunch of voices that worriedly call out his name. Quickly, he heads towards his Jeep, willing to shove as much space as possible between him and what has just happened. 

He can’t believe he’s kissed Derek for real. Most of all, he can’t believe he’s kissed Derek  _ like that _ for real. Especially in front of everyone else. He feels ashamed and he blames himself for not being able of keeping control in the slightest and for not having a shred of demeanor anymore. What was he thinking about? 

But oh  –  maybe that’s the problem. He wasn’t thinking at all. He was just  _ feeling.  _

He slams the car door closed as he sits in the driver’s seat and starts the engine. He leaves without buckling up. 

Halfway between Lydia’s lake house and Beacon Hills he needs to pull over. His feelings are finally catching up with him and he’s hyperventilating and he feels everything is spiralling out of control. He hopes no one is following him. He doesn’t think he can face any of them right now. 

He collapses in his seat and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. It feels cold. 

He sucks in a sharp, shaky, steadying breath. He’s not standing on the verge of an abyss anymore, he’s not free-falling anymore. Now he’s hit the ground, and boy, doesn’t it hurt. He feels like all his internal organs have pulped into a messy, bloody mass. He’s in shock and he feels the panic scrabbling at his feet as if he’s trying to move through quicksand. 

He feels infinitesimal and weak and  _ pathetic.  _ His eyes are suddenly wet and there’s a lump in his throat that won’t go down. His eyes start prickling with tears he is willing to choke back with all his might. Nonetheless, he feels a wet, traitorous teardrop clinging to his eyelashes. He won’t let it fall. He won’t.

He knows that fighting what he feels now is pointless. It’ll only end up overwhelming him and make him feel more breathless than he already feel. But still, he does. He’ll endure. 

He clenches his eyes shut and hopes that it passes quickly. 

_ Hope _ . There’s again this funny word. Hope is a fragile, cunning thing. He’s been  _ hoping  _ that these dreams would stop, and they haven’t. He’s been  _ hoping  _ that kissing Derek would solve everything, and it hasn’t. It feels a little desperate to hope something again, doesn’t it? 

He breathes in through his nose and breathes out through his mouth.

That single teardrop. He feels it wetting the thin stretch of skin under his eye. But he won’t let it fall. He won’t, because letting it roll down his cheek would make this all real and he doesn’t think he knows how to handle this. 

That single teardrop, it might wet his skin, but it will not fall.

_ It does.  _

  
  


_____________ 

  
  


_ “You sure?” _

_ “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” _

_ Stiles wants it, he wants it more than anything. He wants to feel Derek’s muscular body against his, he wants to feel Derek  _ inside him.  _ He’s been wanting to take this step for such a long time, and now he can’t quite fathom that it’s about to happen. _

_ Derek leans in and kisses Stiles softly, a fleeting brush of lips that quickly turns into a symphony of tongues, moans and gentle bites. His big, expert hands wander across the thin body under his, caressing each and every nook and cranny of Stiles’ skin, following the beauty marks as if they were a beautiful constellation, or a map that’ll lead him to Heaven on Earth. He yearns for the sight of how Stiles reacts to his touch.  _

_ Slowly, he lets his hand wonder down Stiles’ torso, finally reaching his groin. Stiles sucks in a sharp breath, suddenly overwhelmed.  _

_ Derek’s hand gently wraps around Stiles’ cock, caressing him with painful slowness, and then faster. He feels his own cock erect, turgid and desperate for a touch. _

_ He tries to wrap them both in his hand, trying to please Stiles and himself in the same time. Stiles’ rushed breathing and the groans that escape his lips are driving him crazy. _

_ “Derek  _ – _ ” Stiles stutters. He sighs in pleasure, yet another time, and then scrabbles at Derek’s broad shoulders, like a castaway adrift in the ocean claws at the edge of a lifeboat. His palms are sweaty and he feels his muscles gloppy. _

_ “Derek,” he tries again, but the friction between their cocks is driving him to the brink. “I want to  _ –  _ ah  _ – _ I want to make love with you.” _

_ Derek kisses him again, whispering on his lips, “Me too, Stiles.” He pulls away to take a condom out of his wallet, still in the back pocket of his jeans, which lay littered on the floor along with the rest of their clothes.  _

_ In the meantime, Stiles reaches out to yank the bottom drawer of his bedside table open and grab the lube bottle. _

_ When Derek turns, he finds Stiles trying to open the lube bottle with no success and a whole lot of frustrated sighs. A tender smirk is evoked to his lips, and even if he tries to suppress it, Derek finds that he can’t bring himself to. _

_ “Stiles,” he says, taking a step towards him and reaching out to rest his hand on Stiles’. Stiles pauses, looking up, his eyes meet Derek’s. “Don’t fret,” he says, as reassuringly as he can. _

_ He can smell Stiles’ arousal, his want and his urge, as restless as he always is, but he can also smell something more pungent. Nervousness. After all, this is Stiles’ first time, and Derek doesn’t want to do anything that Stiles doesn’t want to do. As much as he wants him, he loves and respects him more.  _

_ “Derek, it doesn’t come out,” Stiles groans as he keeps on shaking and squeezing the bottle, but not even a drop comes out. _

_ “Safety seal?” Derek suggests. Stiles looks up and hums as he unscrews the top to remove the seal. He yanks it off with a brisk flick of his wrist and then screws the top back on. He uncaps the bottle and squeezes it to see if the lube finally comes out. _

_ “Shit!” he exclaims, when the lube comes out in excess and slides between his fingers, drip-drip-dripping on his thigh and on the sheets. Derek can’t hold back any longer and shoves himself against Stiles, kissing him passionately, and Stiles staggers backwards and then hits the mattress with his back. _

_ Derek lies on top of him as Stiles digs his fingertips in Derek’s toned up gluteouses, smudging them with lube. Their pelvises meet, and their cocks, brushing once again against one another, swell.  _

_ Stiles spreads his legs and wraps them around Derek, arching his hips forward to follow Derek’s desperate push and pull. _

_ “God, Stiles, I want you so bad…” he breathes, want dense like honey in his rasped voice. _

_ “Derek, please…” Stiles begs him, tugging at Derek’s hair, “ _ Please.”  _ He knows it’ll probably hurt  _ –  _ foreplay hasn’t been enough  _ –  _ , but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, all he can think about now is how desperate he is to feel Derek in him.  _

_ “It’ll hurt,” Derek warns him, gently cupping Stiles’ face, his gaze dropping on Stiles’ reddened lips. _

_ “I don’t care.” _

_ Derek looks up, his eyes back in Stiles’, and Stiles finds that he can’t think straight. He can only  _ feel. _ He only knows that where Derek’s mouth drags on his skin he feels like burning, and that, while Derek messily cants his hips forward to agree to Stiles’ desperate request, his own groans, along with Derek’s name, are probably the most blasphemous thing that ever escaped his lips. _

  
  
  
  


Stiles wakes up in a sweat.

He sits up abruptly with a gasp as what he dreamed of hits him violently and hallmarks in his mind. He curses under his breath. He is tired to the bone of all those dreams.

Five days have passed since he kissed Derek at Lydia’s lake house. Once more, her advice has proved ineffective: he hasn’t stopped dreaming about the alpha, but what’s more  –  or, maybe, what’s  _ worse  _ – , his dreams have somehow evolved. There are no soft kisses anymore. They have evolved into something much less…  _ innocent _ , per say. 

There was nothing innocent about what he just dreamed of. At all. 

He recalls their bodies inescapably joined, the little death embracing them both when, exhausted and sweaty and satiated, they keeled over. He can still sense the smell of sex and Derek’s musky skin on his.

“Dear God, I’m going crazy,” he mutters. He can see colourful lights flickering lick neon butterfly wings where the heels of his palms are pressed against his sockets. He tugs his hair, as if trying to remove his own scalp is something reasonable in such an absurd situation.

“No,  _ I’m _ going crazy.”

A cry is tugged from his lungs and it lodges in his throat when he realises who it is.

Derek.

Derek Hale, the guy he’s been dreaming of for more than a month and whom he’s come to terms he has a crush on. 

Derek is standing there, a shape a little more solid than a shadow next to the window, his arms crossed over his chest.

Stiles swallows thickly. Now that he knows that Derek has been watching over him in his sleep, he feels even more vulnerable. “What  – what are you doing here?” He tries to take on an authoritative and detached tone of voice, but fails miserably. The slight tremble in his voice shows all his uneasiness and fragility.

“I want an explanation,” Derek clarifies with a steady voice.

“At 6 AM? For fuck’s sake, Derek, my father could come in any minute!”

“ _ Your father _ , _ ”  _ presses Derek, “Left to work like half an hour ago.”

_ Oh, great, he’s been lying in ambush like a creepy stalker under my window. Jesus Christ. _

“So?” Derek insists as Stiles is apparently unwilling to speak a word.

“So what, Derek? The fuck you wanna know, hmm?” Stiles snaps.

“I wanna know what the fuck is with you! First you kiss me like that and then you shove me away and you leave without so much as an explanation?” Derek takes a step closer and now overtops him.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Stiles breathes, looking away.

“I’m asking you to tell me what’s happening,” Derek says, his voice softer now. He leans down and sits next to Stiles. “Tell me what’s going on in there,” he says with a tone of voice that sounds a little exasperated, but which is, deep down, far more gently than Stiles has ever heard him say anything. 

Stiles looks up and glances at him briefly. His shoulders sag defiantly. “I’ve been dreaming of you every night for the past month, okay? I’ve been dreaming of kissing you every damn night for over a month and couldn’t get the thought of you out of my head,” he confesses. He feels too embarrassed to hold Derek’s stare. He sets his eyes upon his own fidgeting hands.

He swallows thickly, then he continues. “I’ve tried everything to stop this absurd dreams, I swear, and eventually I’ve even said yes to Lydia’s stupid idea of playing Spin the Bottle  –  yes, everything was set up, for your information. But  –  could it work? No, of course not,” he scoffs bitterly. 

He dares look up fleetingly and his eyes meet Derek’s. He tries to swallow back the tightness he feels in his throat. Then, he says, “Look, Derek  –  I know I’m an idiot and just a kid, but  – ”

Derek cuts him off, maybe he can’t bear his absurd mumbling any longer. Abruptly, he leans into the space between them and presses his lips against Stiles’.

Stiles freezes for a moment, as if the ground is suddenly swept off his feet, and then pulls himself closer, his hands cupping Derek’s cheeks, covered with stubble. Their tongue meet and dance together again.

Derek kisses him overwhelmingly and violently and it feels like he’s been wanting Stiles as much as Stiles wants him, and that he’s been stifling it all down. It’s violent and it’s passionate and it’s insatiable, and Stiles cannot fathom the idea that he’s kissing Derek Hale in his own bedroom. Or, that Derek Hale is kissing  _ him _ , in his own bedroom.

Stiles leans back, gripping Derek by his t-shirt and drawing him in. When Stiles sinks among the pillows, their foreheads crash and a guttural sound that find itself between an exasperated sigh and a giggle escapes Derek’s lips.

“God, you’re so clod and clumsy.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and then grins. “Yeah, maybe, but it seems that you fancy this cloddiness and clumsiness, don’t you?” 

Derek pulls away a flock of hair from Stiles’ forehead. His big hands are incredibly gentle. Stiles would never think that Derek would be capable of such gentleness.

“So you  –  you’ve been dreaming of kissing me, huh?” Derek asks. 

“Yeah,” Stiles replies. His lips curl upwards, smiling crookedly. “You don’t seem to mind, though,” he remarks sarcastically.

“If in your dreams you kiss like this, I don’t mind at all.”

“Well, although we all know everything always feels better in dreams  –  _ surprisingly,  _ when I’m awake my kisses are even better,” Stiles maliciously boasts, “Wolfie.”

“Call me ‘wolfie’ again and I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth,” Derek threatens him between gritted teeth, but he’s trying to suppress a smile. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Stiles retorts, “You’ve been threatening me like that for literal years and I’m still safe and sound. Oh, and let me remind you that if you do so, you’ll never be able to kiss these lips that you apparently like so much.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “God, I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” he agrees finally with a grin. He leans in and presses his lips against Stiles’. “You idiot.” 

_____________ 

  
  
  


_ "My mind wants to interpret _

_ All my dreams. _

_ My heart wants to love _

_ All my dreams. _

_ My soul wants to fulfil  _

_ All my dreams." _

– Sry Chinmoy

**Author's Note:**

> It's been literal years since I've fallen out of this fandom, but Sterek do still hold a special place in my heart. So, when I found this draft still in my Google Docs, I thought _why not?_ and decided to give this story a second chance. My writing style has changed a lot since when I actually wrote this fic, but I hope I was able to get some nice result. Also, iIf you know me, you'll also probably know I don't usually write smut, but I wanted to try my hand at this. I didn't feel comfortable enough to write their whole sexual intercourse, but hey, one step at a time. Maybe in a few years I'll find myself writing smut and smut only (highly improbable, if you'll ask me, but who knows lol).
> 
> And now, let me tell you a couple of fun facts... Well, first, the dream in which Stiles is dating Danny and Derek is a cardiologist is a dream I actually dreamt some years ago and which I vividly remember (it wasn't a sterek dream, but... I mean, the plot was basically the same). My mind apparently gives birth to very weird dreams, but if they eventually turn out to be useful for writing purposes _who am I to disagree_ ( ~~pun intended because I was desperate to crack this joke).~~
> 
> And second, the title of this fic comes from Coldplay's album _A Head Full of Dreams_ , which I was listening to while writing this fic. It proved to be quite fitting, don't you think?
> 
> Hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/seilantartide) if you want to chat about this fic! (or if you want to chat in general). If you feel too shy to shout in my inbox, use the hashtag #AHFODfic
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://starsarefallinglikerain.tumblr.com/). Please share the [tumblr post promo](https://starsarefallinglikerain.tumblr.com/post/625269600656015360/a-head-full-of-dreams-rated-m-sterek-oneshot) (it'd help me out a lot).
> 
> Smack that kudos button if you've made it to the end and please drop a comment with your favourite line, your thoughts, literally anything. It would mean the world to me!
> 
> Until next time!


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